Loving all the black/tan setups. I definitely need to do that in my car.
As for your un-earthed bondo, it seems all but the BEST, MOST Expensive body guys always manage to smooth and round what should be SHARP body lines. SMH.
I'm not following you with the un-earthed bondo bit? Sry =D
I headed out to FABRICLAND today and picked up a great score on materials, the girl liked me so gave me 50% off of everything! Lucky guy.
Here's the three materials I picked up - 1/8" thick felt-like fabric for "backing", black suede, and textured leather. The leather dyes beautifully to black, I just didn't grab a shot:
That picture shows the black backing already applied, and the leather above it, and the suede above it. I don't like the look of the suede on the door, not enough texture.
I don't like the look of the leather either:
So it turns out I'll just be sticking with the bloody backing felt stuff I bought, haha what a waste:
I got all the doors painted at the top to match the black, received another vent today - just waiting on the middle one for the dash now.
Next up will be removing the rear speakers' deck, replace the door speakers with the rear ones - Daytons - and get the rear deck to black. Hooah.
As usual, it's POURING RAIN ALL DAY so no work on the actual body today.
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
Not bad .....not so sure what good it is to have carpet up there in the door panels does anyway.
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm71/krallopian/darthSigTest2_zpsn6zkw5id.jpg[/URL][URL="http://www.facebook.com/pages/DFW7-Dallas-Fort-Worth-BMW-7-Series-Club/300942239566"]DFW7 on Facebook/URL]
"The Last Great e38" 2001 i Sport - Born'd on date 1/01 Cosmos/Grey - 32.8K miles - 2 1/2 " Custom Exhaust, Center “X”over , Modified OEM rear bumper, M5 style trunk spoiler, M6 OEM wheels, M3 Steering wheel with working paddle shift & CF trim, Bi-Xenon upgrade, 13mm Rear sway bar added, SS brake lines and bronze bushings, Cross drilled rotors and painted calipers, Akebono pads, Zionsville aluminum radiator & exp. tank with electric fan, Sprint Booster, BluTooth conversion, MKIV Nav., Custom wood cupholder, DUDMD Tune, Orien V2.5 LED Angel Eyes, Evans waterless. Recently added grey faced //M5 Cluster - all gauges functioning. Changed the grey carpet to black and topped off with GG Bailey front/rear mats[/SIZE]
It's comfy looking?
I finished all of the doors today.
Took out the rear decks and started on the speaker swap.
I did the furthest rear deck in leather, and the speaker deck is just flat black. It looks very sharp - tinted windows so I'm not so worried about glare on the window from the leather.
Unfortunately the sun was going down so I only just managed to grab this shot, the rest were all dark and blurry.
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|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
Loooook at what THIS GUY has been up to!
You're looking at my new leather B pillar and C pillar!
Found my grandmother's sewing machine (Kenmore 1560) and figured it out yesterday. Still have some work to do before I'm a real PRO but so far things are looking up! Never used one of these before, so I took it apart today and figured out how it all works - sewing machines are amazing machines, I had NO idea! Oiled it all up, got all the features working again annd ya, bought some new needles and different threads and went to work on it. I plan to redo the leather on my door inserts as well, annd probably the center arm rest - we'll see.
I'm excited!
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm71/krallopian/darthSigTest2_zpsn6zkw5id.jpg[/URL][URL="http://www.facebook.com/pages/DFW7-Dallas-Fort-Worth-BMW-7-Series-Club/300942239566"]DFW7 on Facebook/URL]
"The Last Great e38" 2001 i Sport - Born'd on date 1/01 Cosmos/Grey - 32.8K miles - 2 1/2 " Custom Exhaust, Center “X”over , Modified OEM rear bumper, M5 style trunk spoiler, M6 OEM wheels, M3 Steering wheel with working paddle shift & CF trim, Bi-Xenon upgrade, 13mm Rear sway bar added, SS brake lines and bronze bushings, Cross drilled rotors and painted calipers, Akebono pads, Zionsville aluminum radiator & exp. tank with electric fan, Sprint Booster, BluTooth conversion, MKIV Nav., Custom wood cupholder, DUDMD Tune, Orien V2.5 LED Angel Eyes, Evans waterless. Recently added grey faced //M5 Cluster - all gauges functioning. Changed the grey carpet to black and topped off with GG Bailey front/rear mats[/SIZE]
The REASON I decided to go this route was because,
A.) I was running low on my white suede and needed to buy more material anyway
B.) I kept thinking, "I wish I could get a custom leather setup . . ."
And I finally realized, "WAIT A SECOND, if senile old women can sew, why the hell can't I!?" Found out we HAD the sewing machine and haven't looked back since (been a long 36 hours haha)
This is what the suede ended up looking like within 10 minutes, I couldn't have been happier - sarcasm:
Here's the leather skin I mocked up - traced the shape with a pen on the backside of the leather, and cut it up, then cut a 20" long 2" wide piece and used it to follow the contour so I could get a nice stitched look, and then stitched the back side of it too - nearest the window:
For no good reason I didn't manage to get any "full" shots of it, but here's another close up:
If you have a sewing machine, I STRONGLY urge you to get to work on this stuff.
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Hah, thanks Darth
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
Im loving this! Great work!
Avenging Angel: 2001 750iL Sport Schwartz II Metallic, too many upgrades to list here..
Kirsa: 2000 750iL Biarritz Blau Metallic, Born on 11/99. Sold 12/21/13
The Mistress: 1997 744iL Biarritz Blau Metallic, Sold 6/7/12. You will be missed Baby..
W0w, That is killer! You may have just found a side business.
The World is ruled by Kings and Queens that blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
When answering my questions please use a qualifier if you are not sure.
The more I work on this car the less I respect German engineering.
When you speak in Absolutes you are always wrong!
Semper Fi
Hahaha, I'm certainly not looking for any work! But again, thanks a lot =)
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
Dude. Thats seriously impressive.
Need more pics of your c pillars once you have them installed.
95 740i 99 750i
I need those C-pillars in my life.
Man that looks awesome!
Palamino and black actually. I used SEM Palamino 15323 dye.
http://www.semproducts.com/refinish-...oattm-aerosols
The World is ruled by Kings and Queens that blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
When answering my questions please use a qualifier if you are not sure.
The more I work on this car the less I respect German engineering.
When you speak in Absolutes you are always wrong!
Semper Fi
Haha good point!
Anyone want to give me their windshield for an a-pillar wrapped in leather? :P
So call me crazy - I'm calling myself crazy - but I took apart the center arm rest.
WHAT A PITA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO OVER-ENGINEERED holy crap. But I guess that's why they're never broken.
Turns OUT there isn't a cusion in there. It's leather wrapped, and then foam-injected to give it padding. GREAT, now I have to rebuild a cushion to fit the 1001 contours that are in that stupid armrest - each side.
Ah well, I have some expanding foam from a project years ago, hopefully I can find it AND it still works.
I'll get pics later.
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
Looking good!! Amazed at how straight your stitches are. Heck, some shops aren't even that good. Keep up the excellent work!
Actually I'll just add them NOW.
Here's WHY I want to replace the leather:
Finally figured out how to get the darned piece off, turns out there is a LONG pin holding the spring in place, then you slide the arm forward and out. But getting that pin out was one difficult task.
Oh look, I took off that back panel to reveal the leather but NOPE, turns out it's just a cover for the injection plate - two injection points for the foam.
So there's the leather with all of the foam on it, sure is nice and soft, BUT completely attached to the leather, no peeling it off.
SO I cut the leather apart to get it's shapes and now I'm going to measure them up, put them together in a vector file and print them out so I can just trace the shapes on to my leather to match the pattern as best as possible. If anyone is interested in undertaking this, I'll throw a vector file on my site for people to download. That's of course if I manage to get the shapes correct in the first place =)
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Hahahah thanks for the comment on the straight stitches. I've seen some horrible work over the years on forums and always thought, "These guys, do they not even care?!" My first few lines were the straightest I could have ever made. Of course then I got cocky and started letting the machine pull the material through, suddenly my lines AND stitch spacing were all over the place. So I ripped the machine a part and made a few tweaks, not it REALLY grabs the material and it's difficult not to make straight lines with it. '70's technology has been getting more use than my CNC and 3D printer in this project, go figure!
Thanks again =)
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
Well that didn't work so well.
I tried using some insulation foam stripping that I have:
The result:
Stitching wasn't straight enough AND the angles were a real pain to do correct, looks like I'll be starting over.
Didn't work, isn't thick enough, but sure feels nice.
I should have just wrapped the existing piece with new leather, instead of stripping it down as I did. Live and learn.
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
You continue to impress, Jamos. Nice work!
I'm about to give up on this arm rest. I can't get the machine to make the corners correctly. No issue on the pillars, but for some reason it's refusing to work for me with this. I have no material left now either - need to get more tomorrow.
*le sigh
But thanks again for the compliments, I'm learning as I go =)
|| 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||
Faaaaar out... That's amazing work, Jamos!
My niece works at an upholsterer and I don't think she could've done a better job, and if she didn't live 700kms away, I'd be putting her to the test by showing her your pics and saying "beat that!".
Well done!
05 e53 X5 4.4i
03 e53 X5 3.0d
95 e38 740iL (sold)
93 e32 730i (sold)
90 e32 735iL (sold)
92 e34 535is(sold)
89 e34 525 m20 to m30b35 conversion(sold)
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